Mike Roos - One Small Town, One Crazy Coach: The Ireland Spuds and the 1963 Indiana High School Basketball Season

One Small Town, One Crazy Coach is a piece of Indiana basketball history that reawakens memories of the glory days of high school teams in Southern Indiana.

CHRIS MAY, Executive Director, Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame

Fifty years ago the term Hoosier Hysteria had a truly special meaning and a band of Spuds solidified it. In short, Mike Rooss work about this unique team and special time is a must read! Any true Hoosier will be taken to a better place!

JERRY REYNOLDS, Director of Player Personnel and Broadcaster for NBA Sacramento Kings

For anyone who grew up in this basketball crazy state One Small Town, One Crazy Coach is a must read. Mike Roos takes us on a wonderful trip back to when Hoosier Basketball was the ONLY game in town not just a story about High School Hoops but an inside look at that glorious era when Indiana Boys basketball meant everything to an entire community.

MIKE BLAKE, NBC Sports Commentator

Many of the schools Ireland High School played in 19621963 disappeared in the consolidation rush of the 1970s. Mike Roos grew up in this world (the golden age of Indiana high school basketball), his father was the principal of Ireland High School during its trip to the promised land, and he knows basketball inside and out. I cant imagine anyone more qualified than Mr. Roos to bring Indiana high school basketball history to lifeespecially in this the 50th anniversary year. His is indeed an originaland valuablework.

DON DAIKER, Emeritus Professor of English, Miami University, Oxford

Mike Roos has captured for basketball fans and general readers alike the essence of what Indiana basketball and small-town life was all about in the 1960s. Along the way, theres lots of string music that will send readers right back to a bygone golden era of Hoosier Hysteria.

JOE DEAN, Color Commentator for SEC basketball

A great tribute to Coach Pete Gill and the 1963 Ireland Spuds. It is a message of faith as a crazy coach leads an underdog team to high achievements against all odds. This book is a true picture of what small-town basketball was like in southern Indiana in 1963, and the power of small-town spirit.

DON BUSE, Former ABA and NBA All Star, Indiana Pacers

Mike Roos cleverly articulates the trials and tribulations faced by all small-town Indiana basketball coaches during an era of Hoosier Hysteria when against all odds, little-known high schools became legendary in defeating those larger schools that routinely dominated the game. Relive one such unpredictable quest orchestrated by Pete Gills motivational style and executed by the 1963 Ireland Spud players who believed in their coach.

JACK BUTCHER, Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame

Mike Rooss One Small Town, One Crazy Coach is a wonderful addition to the literature of the only game that matters in the Hoosier state. Fans of Hoosiers and John Feinsteins A Season on the Brink will discover not simply a tale of Davids taking on Goliaths but a tribute to the villages and hamlets of the Midwest, many of whose home high schools disappeared thanks to public-school consolidation in the 1970s. The minute Irelands gentle giant principal, Jim Roosthe authors fatherhires the raw, impassioned Pete Gill to lead the Spuds, readers also know theyre meeting one of the all-time characters in coachinga man with a peculiar mixture of discipline and impulse, and one given to spectacle. The iconic moment Gill tosses his trousers into the stands captures the sheer exhilaration of victorya rightful reminder that winning is as much about giddy absurdity as sentimental triumph.

KIRK CURNUTT, author of Breathing Out the Ghost, winner of the 2008 Best Books of Indiana Award for Best Novel

Memories of 50 years ago After reading the book, Pete [Gill] was crazier than I imagined.

JIM JONES, Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame Coach

One Small Town, One Crazy Coach is an outstanding book that reflects the true passion of high school basketball in Indiana and its impact on a community. This story is a clear expression of a coach and his teams unwavering belief in accomplishing something special. Youll thoroughly enjoy following the 1963

Ireland Spuds as they chase their piece of Indiana Basketball History.

MICHAEL LEWIS, Assistant Coach, Butler University

ONE SMALL TOWN, ONE CRAZY COACH

The Ireland Spuds and the
1963 Indiana High School
Basketball Season

Mike Roos

This book is a publication of

Quarry Books

an imprint of

Indiana University Press

Indiana University Press

Office of Scholarly Publishing

Herman B Wells Library 350

1320 East 10th Street

Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA

iupress.indiana.edu

Telephone orders 800-842-6796

Fax orders 812-855-7931

2013 by Michael Roos

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roos, Mike.

One small town, one crazy coach : the Ireland Spuds and the 1963 Indiana high school basketball season / Mike Roos.

pages cm.

ISBN 978-0-253-01028-5 (pb : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-253-01035-3 (ebook) 1. BasketballIndianaHistory. 2. High school sportsIndianaHistory. I. Title.

GV885.72.I6R66 2013.

796.32309772dc23

2013011318

1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13

FOR MY PARENTS,

Jim and Betty Roos,

AND FOR

Pete Gill, Red Keusch,

and all the Ireland Spuds of 1963

Thine was the prophets vision, thine

The exaltation, the divine

Insanity of noble minds,

That never falters nor abates,

But labors and endures and waits,

Till all that it foresees it finds

Or what it can not find creates.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Keramos

In 49 states its just basketball. But this is Indiana!

Anonymous

This book has been a ten-year a labor of loveor fifty years, if you care to go back to the beginning. My father was in his second year as principal of Ireland High School, and I an eleven-year-old fifth grader, when the Ireland Spuds made the Sweet Sixteen of Indiana High School basketball in 1963. I was present for most of the games involved and regarded these people as my heroes and source of inspiration, a flame that has never died. In 2003, I attended the fortieth anniversary celebration of the Spuds accomplishment and recognized that this was a story someone needed to preserve and share with the world. My only regret is that it took me so long to hear the calling.